


Dead bards tell no tales

by CatLovePower



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anaphylaxis, Gen, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: Apparently Jaskier can't stay on his own for two days without getting in mortal peril.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 15
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler: he's not dead, I swear.

Tomek was a stocky young man who looked even younger than he was – 15 or 16, he wasn’t sure and his mom had passed away when he was still a baby so she couldn’t help with that. He had been working at the Wild Horse Inn for many years now. He slept in a small room above the kitchens and he helped however he could. At first it was a pity hire, but he liked to think he proved efficient enough, and that the owner, old master Joseph, had started to see him more like a friend and less like a burden over the years.

Tomek was small, but he had big dreams. He wanted way more from life; he wanted to explore the continent and see everything there was to see. But he lacked resources and probably even courage. Every year he said he was going to go, and he delighted everyone with wild tales of his future adventures. 

And then one day, adventure came to him in the form of a colorful bard in need of a room for a day or two. He looked rich and exciting, with his fashionable doublets and his embroidered shirts. Tomek made sure to study them closely when the bard sent them to be washed.

He was hardly dressed for the road and yet he soon came down and regaled the few people present with stories so unbelievable most patrons scoffed. He claimed he was traveling with a witcher, of all things. Tomek tried to say that the alderman had called for one, a while back, but no one paid attention to him. The bard even sang, later that night, bawdy songs that made Tomek blush.

*

He didn’t approach him right away, despite dying to know more about his crazy life on the road, his witcher and the monsters he talked about. Instead he snooped around the next morning, hanging nearby and eavesdropping whenever he could.

“I really hope your witcher knows his shit,” master Joseph was saying.

The bard – Jaskier – looked mildly offended at that.

“The white wolf knows his… shit as you elegantly put it,” he scowled. “A few drowners are not going to stop him.” 

Tomek stilled and imagined the mighty beast hunter on the banks of the forbidden lake, killing monsters and coming back to town as a hero. 

“Oi, I’m not paying you to gawk,” Tomek heard master Joseph say, just before he received a towel in the face. He grabbed it and went to clean tankards, daydreaming about heroic feats. 

“The alderman won’t be disappointed,” Jaskier concluded with a reassuring smile, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He sounded like he trusted the witcher with his life, and Tomek couldn’t wait to meet the man in person.

*

Jaskier looked like a fancy city dweller, but he was surprisingly nice with everyone.

“It’s rare to get a warm welcome, witchers aren’t loved everywhere,” he explained with an easy smile later that day, when Tomek finally gathered the courage to approach him directly and ask him about his companion.

“Honestly, I’m not sure you could call me his companion,” Jaskier added with a more serious expression. “He tolerates me, and he pretends not to like my songs.” 

“Just like master Joseph,” Tomek blurted out.

“Oh, you sing?” Jaskier asked, delighted.

“Uh, no, I…” Tomek mumbled. “I tell scary stories about make believe adventures that never happened to me,” he said rather pitifully. He looked at his shoes, feeling worthless all of a sudden. “All I do is tell glorified lies.”

“Hey, don’t be glum,” Jaskier chirped, tilting his head. “A good story is always some kind of lie anyway.”

“But the things you saw…” he protested.

“Hush. I’m not with Geralt right now, and yet it won’t stop me from regaling people with stories about the epic drowner fight of Lake Morth, as soon as he comes back and begrudgingly refuses to share any details with me.” 

*

The hunt must be a hard one, because the witcher still hadn’t come to the inn after two days. Jaskier didn’t seem worried at all, and Tomek guessed he must know better. Or maybe he was just selfish and didn’t want to go out in that weather to save his friend. But then again, what could a wet bard do against an army of drowners during a thunderstorm? 

Worry must have shown on his face, because Jaskier gestured for him to come closer, and had him sit at his table. Tomek warily accepted, and pretended to bring more bread and water to go with the food already in front of the bard.

“You do know it takes more than a few decomposing water monsters to kill a witcher, right?” 

“But what if…?” he started.

“Knowing him, he took his time cutting off every single head in order not to get swindled, but then he realized he wouldn’t be able to bring them all back. So he’s probably swearing and talking to his horse right now.” 

“You know him pretty well,” Tomek remarked. 

“I have been traveling with him for a while now,” Jaskier said with a smile. 

“And yet he only tolerates you and says he doesn’t like your songs?” Tomek sounded indignant, and he knew he shouldn’t have said that, but when he clamped his hand over his mouth, Jaskier started laughing.

“He’s a brute but he means well. Most of the time.” 

Jaskier distractedly picked at his food while scribbling in a notebook in front of him. He looked at something in his spoon and asked, “Is it supposed to taste funny like that?”

He pulled a face but swallowed nevertheless.

“Yes, mister!” Tomek shook his head, excited to talk about that new fruit they were using in the kitchens. “Citrus they call it. It’s very strange, isn’t it? It comes from faraway lands, I’ve been told.” 

“I guess it’s an acquired taste,” Jaskier mumbled, smacking his lips.

* 

That evening, Jaskier didn’t offer to sing, but nobody really cared. The rain was bad for business and the few patrons still around were drunk already, so he probably wouldn’t get any coin from them. Tomek was daydreaming behind the counter, thinking about learning to play the lute to live off music on the road. He had been told he had a nice voice.

Jaskier was still writing in his notebook, and Tomek was trying to gather the courage to ask him for advice. 

“Be useful and bring the bard his plate,” the cook asked, and Tomek took it as his chance to talk to him. 

It was rice and chicken, and it looked pretty fancy. He guessed even the cook had taken a liking to the musician. But Jaskier muttered half-hearted thanks and didn’t look away from his page. Either he had been struck by inspiration and it made him rude for some reason, or he was falling sick. 

Tomek busied himself with the broom, spying on him from the corner of his eye. 

And then Jaskier started coughing. It made an ugly, wet sound. He clung to his throat with a wild look in his eye. There was fear, but also the resignation of someone who had already seen death up close. He wheezed and shook his head then tilted to the side when he tried to stand up. He gripped the edge of the table and fell before anyone could reach him.

Tomek shrieked for help and knelt next to him, holding his hand and frowning at the already weak grip. He didn’t let go despite the flurry of activity around him. Someone talked about fetching a healer, and master Joseph brought a tankard filled with water. 

They tried to get Jaskier to drink some of it, but he shook his head and moaned a broken plea. 

“He’s not getting any air,” Tomek remarked, when he saw the blue tinge his lips were taking.

Jaskier looked at him with frantic eyes and tried to paw at his shirt. There was a rash on his face and throat, small raised bumps quickly spreading on his skin.

“Could it be poison?” Tomek suggested. 

He briefly looked at the half eaten food on the table. Master Joseph followed his gaze and promptly scrambled back, as if Jaskier was potentially contagious. He snatched the plate and stormed out of the room.

“What is he doing?” Tomek asked, when he saw the cook coming out of the kitchens with a worried expression.

“Throwing out the food. Do you really want to explain to his witcher friend that we poisoned him?”

“But he’s not… he’s going to make it,” he said, his voice wavering.

Jaskier had closed his eyes and he looked dead. He was still breathing, Tomek was close enough to feel it, but he probably wouldn’t last long.

“Kid, if I were you, I’d start running,” the cook told him. He threw his apron, ready to go.

“We can’t leave him! He’s not dead yet!” Tomek was nearly crying now, and he gripped Jaskier’s lax hand even tighter. 

“That’s your funeral,” the cook said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t want to be there when his witcher comes and starts killing everyone as retaliation.” 

Even the drunk patrons fled. Cowards, the lot of them. Tomek scooted closer and cradled Jaskier’s head as he failed to draw a breath.

The door clanked open in his back, and he knew with absolute certainty that the witcher was standing behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Not again”, the witcher swore between clenched teeth as he came into the room.

He was huge and armed to the teeth, clad in a black armor. He had white hair and yellow eyes, just like Jaskier had said, but he looked way deadlier.

Tomek was frozen with fear, half expecting to get thrown aside or worse. And yet he didn’t let go of the bard’s hand, because it didn’t seem right.

“What happened?” Geralt asked.

His voice was deep, and not as angry as he expected. He sounded resigned, and Tomek guessed that it was true what they said about witchers being devoid of emotions.

He put his bag down and got several vials of potion out.

“He can’t…” Tomek struggled to get the words out. “He won’t be able to drink.”

“It’s not for him,” Geralt said.

He quickly drowned several and knelt down next to Tomek. He put a hand on Jaskier’s brow and another on his chest, probably sensing things humans couldn’t.

“What happened?” Geralt repeated without looking at him, and Tomek flinched.

“He started coughing and passed out.” Unshed tears made his vision blurry, and he stammered, because he felt like he had to, “Master Joseph said it could be poison.”

“Jaskier is good at making enemies, but he’s not _that_ good,” the witcher said with a smile that looked so out of place on his face.

“Is there a mage in town? Healer?” Geralt pressed.

He was doing something with his hand, above Jaskier’s still form, and it looked like the air was solidifying around them. A spell of some sort, Tomek realized.

“They went to fetch a healer,” he mumbled, even if it was clear no one was coming back.

Geralt bent over and whispered something in Jaskier’s ear, too low for Tomek to hear. He hoped it wasn’t goodbyes. He felt like an intruder now, and quickly released Jaskier’s hand.

“There is someone,” Tomek hesitated. “A powerful woman who sometimes comes in with the merchants.”

“Merchants?” Geralt said.

His voice sounded strained now, and Tomek could feel the power radiating from the witcher, slowly seeping into Jaskier’s still form. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing anymore.

“They brought exotic fruit,” Tomek said, before realizing what it meant. His eyes widened in fear and shame and he stammered, “Oh gods, I killed him.”

He scrambled backwards but Geralt made no move to stop him.

“Get the fruit, and get me to that mage,” the witcher ordered, never looking away from the bard.

*

Tomek sagged in relief when he found the yellow fruit the cook had overlooked in his haste to flee. He snatched it and quickly ran out, where the witcher was waiting for him. He looked inhumanely pale, and Jaskier looked dead. The bard was bundled in his arms like he weighed nothing. Geralt nodded when he saw him, wordlessly telling him to lead the way.

Tomek really hoped the strange woman was still in town, and he walked up to the door of the fanciest hotel where he heard she was staying. His legs were shaky and he couldn’t even imagine what would happen to him – hell, to the whole town – if Jaskier died.

He had come to realize that Geralt did have emotions, he just didn’t express them overtly.  
But if you looked at him carefully enough, you could see that he was furious, and also very scared.

“You can’t come in–” a man dressed in black explained at the door, but Geralt just growled and stepped in. A silent glare was enough to send the lackey running.

*

Yennefer could sense something was wrong before her door even opened. She didn’t have witcher’s senses, but the smell of death and magic was unmistakable. So she donned a black silk gown and loosely tied her hair back. She opened the door to her apartments just before Geralt, of all people, could barge in. How could she have missed that potent horse smell?

“He’s dying,” he said, talking about Jaskier.

“I can see that,” she deadpanned.

He was clutching the bard in his arms, too stubborn to accept his fate.

“What happened?” she asked, her tone softer this time.

She didn’t know they were traveling together again, and she could read the distress on Geralt’s face, no matter how he tried to hide it.

“Please don’t let him die,” a small voice whined, and Yennefer looked at the young man cowering behind Geralt. _PleasepleasepleaseI’msorry_ , she could hear his thoughts as well as if he were talking. He was reeking of guilt for some reason.

She sighed and gestured for them to come in.

Geralt put the bard on a table and sat on a nearby chair, never really letting go of him. Yennefer came closer and carefully watched Jaskier. He was as good as dead; he wasn’t breathing anymore, he hadn’t in a while now by the look of his face and the purple blotches below his eyes. His lips were blue, and she briefly recalled the last time Geralt came for her help; Jaskier was still breathing that day.

She could sense some magic coming from him. Faint and weird, like spells she knew but couldn’t place because they had been distorted and combined in ways they weren’t meant to be.

“Geralt, what did you do?” she asked with a smile, because she hadn’t known the witcher to be that handy with magic.

“Quen, Ydren, Axii,” Geralt said softly.

He looked worn out, not even raising his head to look at her when he spoke.

“How…”

She frowned when she began to realize what he had done. He had trapped him, shielding him from further damage, while convincing him not to die somehow.

“Yen, I don’t know how long I can hold on…”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing briefly, letting her own magic flow from her fingers.

The young man stepped further, and he took a lemon out of his pocket. He was holding it gingerly, like he was afraid of it.

“He was poisoned by this,” he just said.

Yen laughed briefly, despite the situation. Geralt and the boy glared at her.

“That’s not poisonous,” she said.

 _Unless_ … She looked at Jaskier again, and the rash going all the way from his face to his upper chest. She tilted his head back and opened his mouth, peeking inside.

“What?” Geralt growled.

She could sense that the witcher was fading fast too, and his little stratagem could only work for so long.

“I’ll need to drain some life force,” she explained.

“Use mine,” the boy stepped forward, ready to take off his shirt and offer his blood as sacrifice.

“You’re just a kid,” Geralt protested.

“And you look half dead,” he quickly replied.

“Don’t fight, I can use both,” Yennefer said.

She closed her eyes and focused on her chaos, letting it flow, around Geralt’s signs, around the dark tendrils of death already shrouding the bard.

She didn’t like having spectators; using healing magic always left her soft and weak, and she hated that feeling. But there was no time, and Geralt was… a friend. She could deal with the boy if he proved dangerous, but if his panicked thoughts were anything to go by, he wouldn’t.

After all this time, she still didn’t know what to think of the bard. She had heard some of his ballads. She even featured in some. All she knew is that Geralt cared about him. So she let her chaos do the work, reinforced by the witcher’s and the boy’s life forces.

She sat down once she was done, wiping sweat off her brow.

“You can let go now,” she told Geralt.

He bent over and whispered something to Jaskier’s ear. The bard came round with a strangled gasp, his free hand jerking up to feel his throat. He drew a few shaky breaths before blinking at Geralt and frowning at Yennefer.

“Someone died?” he croaked. And of course, he would go for humor seconds after coming back from the dead.

“Not on my watch,” Geralt said.

He was still holding his hand, but Yennefer bit her tongue and didn’t comment.

“Please don’t punish master Joseph, please don’t kill anyone,” the boy stammered from where he stood.

Jaskier tried to sit up, but Geralt prevented it with a light push. “Tomek?”

“It’s my fault…”

“I hardly think so,” Yennefer said.

“Then what…”

“You,” she told Jaskier, “don’t eat anything with citrus anymore.”

Jaskier blinked stupidly, and she gestured to the lemon Tomek was still holding up.

“And you,” she told Geralt, “tell me how you kept him from dying with your witcher signs.”

She didn’t like admitting it, but she was curious. It shouldn’t have worked; the human brain couldn’t stay deprived of oxygen for that long, and yet.

“I ordered him not to die.”

“See, I can follow orders,” Jaskier mumbled.

Yennefer scoffed. “It’s clear Axii is very potent on feeble minds.”

*

Later that night, Tomek was sent back to the inn to fetch Jaskier’s belongings and Geralt’s horse and bring them to the hotel. Yennefer had asked them to stay, under the pretense of checking how the bard would fare. Tomek was pretty sure she just wanted to hear about their adventures and didn’t know how to ask.

Master Joseph and some patrons had come back to the inn, but they all looked wary and skittish. They jumped when Tomek opened the door, and the owner put him in a bear hug when he saw him.

“I thought you were dead, taken by the vicious witcher,” he sobbed.

Tomek kept his explanations vague and did his best to reassure him. Then he quickly gathered the witcher’s things, his bag of potions and a very gnarly looking string of drowners’ ears, before moving upstairs and doing the same with Jaskier’s.

He still felt bad for what had happened, but he was also grateful for the insight it gave him. There was so much more to discover, and he couldn’t wait for his stories to be based on truth instead of fantasy. For tonight he hurried back to the hotel, eager to learn anything he could from those three very strange people who refused to admit they were friends.


End file.
